LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - Arkansas got a new lethal injection law Wednesday, as Gov. Mike Beebe signed legislation rewriting the old law that the state's top court struck down last year.

The new law puts Arkansas on track to resume capital punishment, although more court challenges could further delay the state from executing a prisoner for the first time since 2005.

Legislators brought up the measure this year after the state Supreme Court in June deemed a 2009 lethal injection law unconstitutional. The court said the Legislature had given the Department of Correction "unfettered discretion" to figure out the protocol and procedures for executions, including the chemicals to be used.

The legislation Beebe signed Wednesday spells out in greater detail the procedures the state must follow in carrying out executions. However, some lawmakers expressed concerns that it fails to address issues that led the court to overturn the 2009 law. The new law says the state must use a lethal dose of a barbiturate, but leaves it up to the Department of Correction to determine which one.

Department spokeswoman Dina Tyler said Wednesday that the agency has not figured out which barbiturate it will use.

"There would be time to procure whatever we need to procure out of that class of drugs," Tyler said.

Arkansas has 37 death row inmates and no pending executions.

For that to change, Attorney General Dustin McDaniel would have to notify the governor that inmates' court challenges have run their course and ask him to set execution dates. McDaniel spokesman Aaron Sadler said eight death row inmates have exhausted their appeals. McDaniel did not immediately ask the governor to set any new execution dates.

"We are still determining how we will proceed," Sadler said in an email.

When asked whether the governor would set execution dates, Beebe spokesman Matt DeCample said the governor will follow the law of the land.

Beebe, a Democrat, signed the lethal injection bill despite his own misgivings about the death penalty. After running for governor as a supporter of capital punishment, he said last month that he would sign legislation outlawing the death penalty if legislators were to send him such a bill. Lawmakers have not proposed such a bill.